


with passion at your fingertips

by longliveus



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Pining, osasuna week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24485407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longliveus/pseuds/longliveus
Summary: Osamu wasn’t, and could have never been, a doll, for how unpredictable he’s always been.If anything, all this time, it was Rintarou dancing on Osamu’s palm. Moving the way he wanted. And it makes sense, he thinks as he drifts away to sleep, why he had never been able to comply to his heart’s voice.How can a doll, devoid of human emotion, fall in love with its puppeteer?
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 1
Kudos: 80
Collections: OsaSuna Week 2020





	with passion at your fingertips

**Author's Note:**

> **for osasuna week 2020.** day 1, tier one: past/future and tier two (bonus): breakfast/sunrise.

A soulless doll will perfectly dance to its master’s movements.

Fingers move in precise, calculated ways and the strings attached to them manipulate the doll to the master’s desire.

Unfortunately, Osamu is no longer a doll.

Rintarou knows that he has never been one, to begin with. But he puts that fact inside a box, locks it with a hundred keys and pushes it to the very back of his mind. Far, far back where he can’t reach, even if he wanted.

It’s more fun to pretend he is.

At practices, between breaks, he sees Osamu from the sidelines. He counts the steps he takes on the run up. He squints his eyes the moment Osamu jumps up in the air and his feet aren’t touching the floor anymore. He smiles when his hand connects with the ball, sending it to the other side of the net along with a loud noise.

He observes and studies Osamu with an analytical eye. He wonders what his strengths are, what his weaknesses are, how he can make him move the way he wants him to.

Osamu has exceptional skills and a great sense of the game, but he doesn’t take big risks on his own and doesn’t like to stand out that much.

If asked, Rintarou would say he analyzes Osamu and the rest of his teammates, for when they end up in different teams. That way, he’ll know exactly how to pull their strings to his liking when they face each other.

Know your enemy and know yourself, and you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. Or something along those lines.

Somewhere deep down, something tells him that’s all one big excuse. But he blatantly ignores the voice of his heart, covered in multiple layers, distant. Stored away in a territory he doesn’t want to explore.

He keeps pulling the imaginary strings in a determined way, one hundred percent convinced that Osamu will move the way he wants.

Keep pulling. Keep pulling. Until they break.

“I’m not gonna keep playin’ volleyball after graduation,” Osamu tells him one afternoon, after practice.

He’s standing at the entrance doors of the gymnasium while Osamu sits on the stairs. They’re not looking at each other.

The summer sun is slowly travelling its way across the sky to hide on the west, leaving behind a colorful mess of pinks and oranges above their heads.

They may as well be in hell, given how hot it’s outside. But Rintarou feels a chill making its way up from the tips of his toes to the last of his hair. Frozen on the spot and for a split second, he thinks he could make a good living statue.

It’s as casual as it sounds. It feels like Osamu is telling him about the weather, or the upcoming festivals, or his plans for summer break. Not his plans for the future after high school.

And he needs one, two minutes to process the information. Three, if necessary. A whole lifetime to come to terms with it, if he’s honest.

The first conclusion he reaches is that it doesn’t make sense. The second, that it must be a joke. The third is that he is, in fact, saying the truth.

It’s all in his head, but Rintarou still hears the faint sound of strings being cut.

Osamu looks back at him over his shoulder. There’s an expression on his face he had never seen before: the kind of face one makes when they know they’d disappointed someone. It’s fleeting, though. Because when he blinks, Osamu’s face is set back on the usual blank stare and pressed lips. The expression Rintarou had never been able to read.

“I… I wasn’t expecting that,” he manages to say after, for what feels like, a century. Osamu casts his gaze away and doesn’t say anything.

Rintarou forces his feet, his whole body, to react and he walks to stand up next to Osamu. He ruffles his hair with one hand, causing Osamu to look up at him, in mild surprise. Rintarou smiles.

“I wanted to play against you, you know,” he says. A light, playful tone on his voice. “At least you’ll be there to cheer me on, I guess?”

Osamu laughs and it feels definitive. There is no way back.

Something inside Rintarou breaks at the sound. He mentally moves his fingers but he doesn’t feel the tight pull. The feeling of control is gone.

“Of course I’ll be there,” Osamu says. The traces of his laugh linger on his words. “I’m tellin’ ya, I’ll be the first one t’get yer jersey. I’ll be yer number one fan.”

Some hours later, when he lays on his bed, waiting for the exhaustion to take him away to the land of dreams, Rintarou realizes two things.

Graduation is still months away but that conversation was where they parted ways.

Osamu wasn’t, and could have never been, a doll, for how unpredictable he’s always been.

If anything, all this time, it was Rintarou dancing on Osamu’s palm. Moving the way he wanted. And it makes sense, he thinks as he drifts away to sleep, why he had never been able to comply to his heart’s voice.

How can a doll, devoid of human emotion, fall in love with its puppeteer?

* * *

Rintarou lifts his hand and stares at it absentmindedly. Unaware of his surroundings, an infinite silence fills the place. The needles of the clock stopped moving sometime. It’s the calm before the storm.

He flexes his fingers, slowly and in clockwork movements. He sees the silken threads attached to the tips of his fingers, like an extension of his skin, flowing delicately in the air.

A cold sharpness presses on his back, over his heart. He feels a slight terror paralyzing every inch of his being, except for his hands, that keep on working on those strings. Moving, manipulating, giving life a long lost marionette.

The knife presses into his skin, until it’s all the way in. He flinches at the cold metal and nothing else. He takes his eyes off his hands to look at his feet.

Red droplets taint white, immaculate floor tiles. And he knows his equally white jersey is quickly turning dark red, as well.

His fingers keep moving and the knife twists inside him. A humorless, dry laugh gets past his lips. He doesn’t feel any pain.

He knows the hand holding the knife. And even though their face never comes into view, he would recognize that voice anywhere.

_ “I’m sorry, Rin.” _

He wakes up, trembling in a cold sweat.

The morning sun rays filtering through the window bathe his bedroom in an ethereal glow.

An artwork worth of a thousands praises makes home for the headache he feels. For the mess that is his head, heart and soul.

He sits on the bed and checks his phone. A few messages from friends, two missed alarms. He is allowed to sleep in, once in a while.

Even if it’s due to a dream-turn-nightmare.

He hasn’t seen Osamu in almost five months. And the more they go without seeing each other, the more Rintarou feels he’s slowly forgetting all about Osamu.

Their meetings are always short. A handful of hours, surrounded by teammates and colleagues, old and new. Someone is always pulling from his arm, taking him away from the one person he wants to talk to.

The one person he wants to talk to in this place, in this country and in this world.

He apologizes and Osamu waves his hand, dismissing his worries and says, “It’s okay, we’ll catch up later.”

They never do.

Sometimes, Rintarou wonders what would have happened were Osamu to go pro. Would they have ended up on the same team? Would they have faced each other with a net between them?

Would it be any different than it is now?

A loud knock shakes him out of his thoughts. He slips out of bed and drags his feet all the way to the door.

He’s ready to tell whoever is behind the door to  _ please _ go away. He’s sure he will be carrying the bittersweetness from his dream all day. He doesn’t want nor need anyone to see him like this.

A forced apology is about to leave his mouth when he opens the door and he has to swallow it back as Osamu stands in front of him.

“Long time, no see,” Osamu greets him, a smile on his face and his eyes bright. The morning light coming from inside Rintarou’s apartment softens his features and Rintarou has to close his hands into fists and press them to his sides. Otherwise, he’s afraid he’ll move on his own into foreign lands he doesn’t know.

The distant memory of marionettes and strings from years and years ago comes back to bite him.

Osamu takes a step into his personal space and wraps his arms around him, and holds him there, under the threshold of his home, for an eternity in Rintarou’s heart and for just merely seconds in real time.

They stand in the same place, none of them daring to move away. Rintarou asks himself when was the last time he properly looked into Osamu’s eyes from such closeness. They’ve always been beautiful. Easy to lose yourself in them, hard to read their real feelings.

A warning flicks him on the forehead and gets him out of his trance.

“Are ya gonna let me in?”

Rintarou steps back, almost immediately. He turns away from Osamu’s view in order not to let him see his face. He  _ knows  _ that, at the very least, a faint blush must be spreading through his cheeks.

Osamu takes off his shoes and leaves them at the genkan next to the door. Then, he walks into the house. He stops to take a better look at the pictures hanging on the wall and looks at Rintarou, pointing at one specific photo. It’s a picture of them the day before graduation. Osamu has his arms around Rintarou’s shoulders, pulling him into him. He is smiling with his eyes closed and Osamu is looking at the camera, his smile matching Rintarou’s.

“Didn’t know ya kept this one,” Osamu comments, looking back at the picture. He wants to say,  _ “of course I kept it”  _ or  _ “why wouldn’t I have it?” _ but words get stuck behind his teeth and when Osamu’s eyes are on him again, he sees a flicker of concern on his face before it disappears in a blink. “Are ya okay?”

He nods. And he thinks it’s enough of an answer but Osamu doesn’t look very convinced. “Yeah, it’s just… You woke me up, so I’m still kinda out of it.”

“Sorry ‘bout that. I thought ya were gonna be awake, y’know, ya always been one to wake up early.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry. I’m happy to have you here.”

* * *

Something feels wrong. He sees Osamu moving freely in his kitchen, making breakfast for both of them. He knows it should be him cooking for them. Osamu is just visiting him, yet he asked Rintarou to let him make breakfast, as an apology for showing up unannounced. Rintarou tells him he doesn’t need to apologize, but he’ll take him up on his offer because when had he been able to say no to him?

Osamu was a great player with exceptional skills and now, he’s a man with a talent for cooking. He talks about his business, the new things he wants to try. And he looks like he’s in his element, like he belongs to this one place and nowhere else.

Something feels wrong because he sees Osamu moving freely in his kitchen and that gives him a sense of comfort and domesticity.

Something he can’t have.

Sitting at the table in his kitchen, Rintarou goes back in time and he remembers thinking that if he was able to manipulate opposite players during a match, he could also control people in his daily life. Keep control over everything, so he would be ready for whatever life had in store for him. He didn’t like unpredictability.

How ironic that was, for he ended up falling for the most unpredictable person in his world.

He couldn’t predict Osamu choosing cooking over volleyball. He couldn’t predict Osamu moving away from him. He couldn’t predict Osamu showing up at his apartment and offering breakfast and a warm smile.

How could he have thought Osamu was a doll when all this time he has been moving on his own?

“Uh, Suna, ya sure yer okay?” Osamu says and sits on the other side of the table, opposite him.

His brows slightly furrow in worry and he squints his eyes at Rintarou, looking for any telling sign on his face.

Rintarou is quick to wave a hand dismissively. He is fine. He’s just surprised. Taken aback. Still kind of can’t believe Osamu is right in front of him. In his apartment. In his kitchen. Having breakfast with him.

He forces himself not to pinch his arm.

“Yeah, still surprised, I guess. I wasn’t expecting to start my day with you at my door.”

Osamu laughs. And unlike that one time, memory still fresh in his mind, it doesn’t feel definitive. It’s far from it. It feels like a new beginning.

“Well, it was supposed t’be a surprise.”

Rintarou smiles. The sense of comfort and domesticity lingers in the air but he doesn’t mind it anymore. Instead, he embraces for as long as he can. Until the next time. He can live with that.

The rest of the breakfast passes in a quiet chatter. Catching up after months. Rintarou tells him about his team and the upcoming season. Osamu tells him about his shop and how it’s slowly, but surely, getting bigger. And he also tells Rintarou he keeps the white and light blue jersey with the name  _ Suna _ written on its back like a relic and that he can’t wait to wear it to the EJP Raijin’s match against Black Jackals.

“Thanks for the support but I’d rather not have Atsumu asking me weird questions after the match again.”

This catches Osamu’s attention and Rintarou wants to hide away under his bed and never see the light of day again.

Atsumu, in his high school arrogance and selfishness, was the one to figure out Rintarou’s feelings. He had asked him about it when they were in third year. And at that time, Rintarou was afraid of Osamu cutting the strings that could never actually control him, and in the process, breaking him beyond repair. Because after all, the marionette was Rintarou himself.

And last season, after the match, Atsumu went to Rintarou and asked him if he and Samu were finally together.  _ “Ya can’t fool me, Suna,” _ he had said. But Rintarou wasn’t fooling anyone.

He realizes that, right now, he’s not a doll nor a puppeteer. And the invisible soft threads he thought he was pulling almost seven years ago have never existed. You can’t control even the most predictable person on Earth.

With the plates long forgotten on the table, he doesn’t say anything and stands up. He feels Osamu’s eyes following him as he walks around the table to stand in front of him. None of them say a word as Rintarou lifts his hands and places them on each side of Osamu’s face.

Such boldness coming from him overwhelms him at the last second and he’s about to retreat and apologize when Osamu nods his head. Telling him to go on. Giving him permission. That it’s okay.

That it’s mutual.

Rintarou leans down and presses their lips together in a tender kiss. 

He smiles into it and feels Osamu do the same.

All those tiny details about Osamu he thought he’d forgotten come alive with just a single smile.

He can have it all.

* * *

A soulless doll will perfectly dance to its master’s movements.

Fingers move in precise, calculated ways and the strings attached to them manipulate the doll to the master’s desire.

Fortunately, Osamu moves on his own when he wraps his arms around Rintarou’s torso and presses a kiss behind his ear.

**Author's Note:**

> happy start of osasuna week !!
> 
> fun fact: i actually had another idea for this day but when i was editing earlier i decided i didn’t really liked it, deleted everything and wrote this instead.
> 
> hope you liked it 💖
> 
> i’m [@miyatsumus](http://twitter.com/miyatsumus) on twitter. talk to me or send me memes. i’m open for both.


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